マイ・デイズ～オーランド・ギボンズ&ニコ・ミューリー

世界最高峰のヴィオール・コンソート、フレットワークが奏でるギボンズ!

ジャンルを問わない現代音楽の作曲家、アメリカのニコ・ミューリー(ニコ・マーリー)のよって作られた《マイ・デイズ》と、その作品に影響を与えたオーランド・ギボンズ(1583-1625)の作品を組み合わせて、世界最高峰のヴィオール・コンソート「フレットワーク」が録音しました。ギボンズの作品は、現在あまり演奏される機会はありませんが、その内容はパーセル、ベートーヴェンそしてシューベルトにも劣らぬ質の高い音楽だったと言えるでしょう。「ギボンズの想像力の豊かさ、素材の巧みな扱い、感情の深さと成熟、絶妙なフレーズの転換、調和の確かさ、対位法の容易さと熟達、これらすべてが彼を一流の作曲家に押し上げています」と、フレットワークの創設メンバーでもある名ヴィオール奏者リチャード・ブースビーは語っています。
東京エムプラス

This 2025 release, which made classical best-seller lists in the spring of that year, features polyphonic string chamber music (and a vocal finale) by Orlando Gibbons in two sets framing the titular work by contemporary American composer Nico Muhly. The durable string group Fretwork is heard in the Gibbons viola da gamba pieces, with a clean, quiet sound that draws the listener in a hypnotic fashion into Gibbons quite complex counterpoint, which numbered among its fans none other than Glenn Gould (he named Gibbons as his favorite composer) and then comes a great shift. It is not that Muhlys work is in a totally new style; he artfully evokes Renaissance models, and the work is about Gibbons death. Other composers have written neo-Renaissance works, and Muhlys music fits earlier patterns in some respects, but the text and its usage are something else. The notes call it a "ritualised memory piece." There are two sets of verses from the latter part of Psalm 39, with an autopsy report consisting of testimony by witnesses to Gibbons death in the middle. This section is marked by complex polyphony. The autopsy was done because plague was in the air, and the specificity of the text jumps out when one hears it. It is true that it may be on the gory side for some (convulsions that "did wring his mouth up to his ears"); it is also true that nobody else has written anything quite like this before. The vocals come back in the single vocal work here written by Gibbons: Behold, thou hast made my days, which gives the album its title and whose text also comes from Psalm 39. A fascinating, often gripping release. ~ James Manheim